near to Hethpool, Northumberland, Great Britain

Admiral Lord Collingwood Link was a friend of Nelson and fought with him at Trafalgar in 1805. His home was in the College Valley.

Collingwood advised country gentlemen never to walk through their fields without having a pocketful of acorns to drop in the hedge sides, for if they did not, he said, the time was not far distant when to keep our navy we should have to depend entirely upon captures from the enemy.

Oak trees were planted by his wife, Sarah, at Hethpool in 1815, according to his wishes, to provide timber for future warships. However, Collingwood died in 1810 en route home to England, and never saw the trees. He was buried in St Paulís Cathedral close to Nelson. The two centuries that some of these trees and their ancestors have grown saw timber vessels transformed to steel, and his legacy here is now one for wildlife and the landscape.

A BBC web page on Collingwood is here Link
The Collingwood oaks also feature in G.K. Chesterton's poem 'The Song of the Oak' Link